Posts Tagged: honey bees

Since honey bees don't forage until temperatures hit 50 to 55 degrees, we haven't seen many bees gathering pollen from our nectarine trees.

If you love nectarines, there's a lot to love. California boasts some 29,300 bearing acres of nectarines, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's down slightly from the 30,300 acres tallied in 2009.

Although acreage is down, yields are up. The 2010 crop totaled 8.03 tons, up slightly from the 7.25 tons harvested in 2009.

Meanwhile, pollen-packin' honey bees turned out in force last Sunday to forage on the pink blossoms of our two nectarine trees.

At the UC Davis Department of Entomology, we're frequently contacted by folks throughout the country asking what to plant to attract pollinators--native bees, honey bees (honey bees not native; European colonists brought them over here in 1622), and other pollinators.

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has a wonderful list of native plants on its website. You click on your region and you'll be directed to a list.

If you poke around the Xerces Society website, you can find information on why native bee habitats are important and how to create native bee habitats. Also check out the pollinator handbook and the fact sheets.

Salvia divinorum, which like all the salvias, is a member of the mint family, is gaining notoriety for its hallucinogenic effects. Videos on smoking salvia and the resulting psychedelic experiences materialize periodically on YouTube.

Now in research published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, scientists think that an active ingredient in salvia--salvinorin A--may be a potential treatment for "an array of neurological disorders, including addiction," according to an article posted today on the Good Morning America ABC site.

The headline teased "Salvia Studies Hold Promise for Addiction." The subhead: "Hallucinogen Salvia is Safe, Could Open Door to New Class of Drugs for Pain Therapies."

The researchers, led by psychologist Matthew W. Johnson, speculate that salvinorin A "could open the door to a whole new class of drugs that have powerful analgesic properties."